JOHANNESBURG Nov 26 (AFP): Scientists in South Africa said Thursday they had detected a new Covid-19 variant with multiple mutations, blaming it for a surge in infection numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Unfortunately we have detected a new variant which is a reason for concern in South Africa,” virologist Tulio de Oliveira told a hastily-called news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The variant, which goes by the scientific lineage number B.1.1.529, “has a very high number of mutations,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has also been detected in Botswana and Hong Kong among travellers from South Africa, he said<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Health Minister Joe Phaahla said the variant was of “serious concern” and behind an “exponential” increase in reported cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daily infections shot to more than 1,200 cases on Wednesday, from around 100 earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa last year detected the Beta variant of the virus although until now infection numbers have been driven by the Delta variant, which was originally detected in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa has the highest pandemic numbers in Africa, notching up around 2.95 million cases, of which 89,657 have been fatal. –<\/p>\n\n\n\n
-AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JOHANNESBURG Nov 26 (AFP): Scientists in South Africa said Thursday they had detected a new Covid-19 variant with multiple mutations, blaming it for a surge in infection numbers. “Unfortunately we have detected a new variant which is a reason for concern in South Africa,” virologist Tulio de Oliveira told a hastily-called news conference. The variant, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[126,10,2],"tags":[97,254,253],"class_list":["post-1346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-tie-travel","category-tie-world","tag-covid","tag-mutation","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1347,"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions\/1347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unclekentang.com\/bi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}